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Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars
Plot Zim's newest plan for Earth conquest is almost ready, and he wants the Almighty Tallest to come see it since The Massive is nearby. "The latest plan" is a monster leech that sucks out and eats the brains of people, and GIR must keep its levels under control to prevent it from escaping. The Tallest don’t care and hang up on Zim's call, but Zim is still determined that Red and Purple get "front row seats to the end of all mankind." Meanwhile, Dib has been working on Tak's Ship in his garage, and is now able to use the onboard computer to decipher Irken text. Also, since Dib placed a spy bug in Zim's Base during Tak: The Hideous New Girl, he can steal information from Zim's computer. Using both of these resources, Dib listens in on a call Zim makes to Prisoner 777 on planet Vort, and watches in horror as Zim asks the Vortian scientist for schematics to The Massive, allowing him to remotely control the ship and bring the Tallest to Earth. However, the Tallest have problems of their own to take care of: a resistance group that has vowed to destroy the Irken Empire - imaginatively named The Resisty. Normally, their ship would be no match for the Massive, but right before the Tallest's command ship blows up the Resisty, Zim takes control of the Massive. The maniacal alien maintains control for only a few minutes, however, before then Dib butts his big head in, and starts flying the Massive in the opposite direction. Zim and Dib fight for control of the ship on Earth, while in space the Tallest are thrown wildly about inside the Massive, while the Resisty shoot at them. At some point during all of this, Zim's Computer warns his master that the brain leech's levels are dangerously out of control. Zim abandons the fight for the Massive momentarily to see why GIR wasn't doing his job. On the way to the leech room, the computer informs Zim that someone is at the door. Zim brushes it off as a minor annoyance and orders the Roboparents to take care of it, and continues to where GIR is. Zim finds GIR lying in a pile of mashed potatoes, and quickly puts the little robot back to work. But before Zim can go back to fighting Dib, the computer tells Zim that the Roboparents are malfunctioning horribly, and are now playing catch with the little boy at the door. Zim then changes GIR's orders and has him fight Dib in his place, while Zim goes upstairs and takes care of the Roboparents. To his horror, Zim sees that the entire neighborhood is staring at his fake parents, who have now begun trying to eat the little boy. Panicking, Zim throws the boy into the crowd and pushes his Roboparents back inside. Robodad, however, gets mad at Zim and yells at him for being rude. Both parents start chasing after Zim, who runs back to the control room where GIR and Dib are trying to control the Massive. After laying down a force field in the doorway to keep the Roboparents out, Zim takes the controls back from GIR, and commands him to take care of the leech once more. After a few more minutes of fighting between Dib and Zim, Zim finally realizes that Dib is using Tak's ship to control the Massive, and, once his Computer locates Dib's spybug, Zim remotely reactivates the security programming in the Irken ship. Tak's downloaded personality interface locks Dib out of the ship and starts attacking him, leaving Zim free to gain full control of the Massive. Back on the Massive, Red figures out that Zim is controlling the ship by establishing a link with the ship's power core. To fix the problem, Red has the Massive's pilots switch power cores with the Resisty's ship. Now the Resisty are the ones being pulled toward Earth, but Zim doesn't realize it. Lard Nar, the leader of the Resisty, orders the ship's shrinky-self-destruct to be activated, and the Resisty evacuate, promising to return again. Back on Earth, Zim decides to land the Massive on Dib's head. At first, Dib panics at the sight of the giant ship about to crush him, but is left speechless when it shrinks down to the size of an ant before exploding. Zim panics at what he thinks is the death of his leaders, but really loses it when he discovers that the brain-eating parasite has woken up. Once the Massive's controls come back online, the Tallest call Zim to reprimand him for commandeering their ship. But when Zim shows up on screen, he is running around in great pain with the giant brain leech attached to his head. GIR is eating mashed potatoes, and Robomom is taking pictures of Robodad eating a little boy. Horrified by the carnage, Purple leaves the room to vomit. Facts of Doom Cultural References *In the very beginning when Zim is calling to The Almighty Tallest for a while, it may be a reference to the popular "Hey! Listen!" meme. *When Dib appears next to Zim, a blue button appears and says "New Player". This is a reference to multiplayer video games. *There is a scene in this episode that is similar to the arcade game Centipede, when The Massive appeared on screen as a long line that snakes around. *Prisoner 777 may be a reference to JTHM, as 777 is Nny's address. Trivia of Doom *There are two closed captioning errors in this episode. One is when Dib first appears as a hologram, Zim says: "Damn that!" but he really is just saying "Dib!" The second one is when Gir and Dib are fighting over the controls. Dib supposedly says: "This sucks, y'know?" but really says: "Get off! No!" *This episode is featured on the Invader ZIM Volume 3: Horrible Holiday Cheer DVD. *In this episode, we discover that Invader Larb has succeeded in his mission to conquer the planet Vort. *This episode never aired in the US until 2006, but it aired in other countries years earlier, such as Australia having it in late 2003. *Zim's rant towards the beginning of the episode lasted for three hours, though we only hear fifty one seconds of it. *Tak is involved in this episode, though only through the AI programmed in her old ship. *This is Jhonen Vasquez's favorite episode of Invader ZIM. *When Zim and Dib are piloting the Massive in the asteroid field, it looks brand new, when it is supposed to be beaten up. *For some reason, the Irken Fleet leaves the Massive behind once it loses control, instead of trailing it as it usually does. The Fleet reappears only once when the Massive is being repaired. *The Almighty Tallest were originally going to die in this episode during the scene where The Massive crashes into the star. Wally Wingert pleaded for Jhonen to have them die, but he refused. *Almighty Tallest Purple was originally supposed to lick donut crumbs off the "camera" when Tallest Red was running the manual diagnostic. *This is one of the rare episodes we get to see Zim actually take off his human contact lenses. When the Roboparents force him back down into the piloting room, his wig falls off. We see him with no wig but his lenses on, which he then throws off before hopping back into the cockpit. *In the part in which the Almighty Tallest are eating donuts while the giant laser is being fired, the donut crumbs seem to be in zero gravity. *Prisoner 777 is voiced by the same person who voices Almighty Tallest Red. *The computer on the Resisty's ship is voiced by the same person who does Almighty Tallest Purple. *The fourth wall is broken in this episode when Zim tells Dib "Watch as I bring a royal audience to the downfall of the human race". It looks like the audience is sitting inside Tak's ship, and looks at Zim when he's talking, and then when Dib talks the camera looks up at him, and then it goes back to Zim, then starts going back to Dib but stops and goes back to Zim. *When the Resisty's ship appeared to Dib, he should have realized it was the wrong ship because while he was fighting for control of the Massive, he actually saw a picture of it. *In the Latin American version of this episode, Shloonktapooxis and Lard Nar was voiced by Carlos Iñigo and Ernesto Lezama, the voices for Rocko and Filburt from Rocko's Modern Life. Things You Might Have Missed *When Almighty Tallest Red is pretending to punch The Resisty's ship with a puppet of himself, the puppet's antennae are similar to Zim's in the pilot episode. *Look closely at Lard Nar throughout this episode and you'll notice that his outfit keeps changing. *When Dib is establishing the link from his computer to Tak's ship, the picture on the corner of his computer screen is of Zim's ship instead of Tak's. *The button that activates the Shrinky Self Destruct on the Resisty's ship looks like wobbly headed Bob, one of Jhonen Vasquez's other characters. *You will find Bloody GIR in this episode. When Almighty Tallest Purple says "Hey, that's a Vort ship!", look very closely next to his head and you will see him there, although it is extremely small. Watching the Netflix version is recommended, as it will disappear during the shot and leave some blurriness near Purple's head. This will show you where he was. *If you pay attention, you will notice "Resisty Rocks!" is written on the Massive BEFORE it shows the Resisty writing it. *When Dib is reading aloud about planet Vort, his eyes are going right to left, but when the camera zooms in, his eyes change direction to left to right. *Throughout the episode, the background of the Resisty's ship has computer screens with images on them from the control panel from the beggining of The Nightmare Begins. *When the camera is about to show Zim maniacally laughing after he hijacks The Massive, Look closely in the moment before: The pipes on the sides of Zim's house are missing. Animation Errors *Throughout many parts of this episode, Zim, GIR, and Dib's colors pale down, and then get back to normal. *Although this episode takes place all on the same night, when the boy goes up to Zim's door, it is daytime, even though its supposed to be nighttime. Another time is when Zim gets out of the garbage can to stop the Roboparents. You can see a window above Zim that shows it is daytime. Then, just one second later when Zim runs outside, it's nighttime again. *When Zim first gains control of the Massive and Tallest Purple is screaming, "What's happening? Why have we lost control?", Tallest Red's mouth is syncing this, which is a common error in animation that is expensive to fix, so they left it in. *Right after the Resisty leave and the Tallest are eating doughnuts, you can see that Red's tongue is a human tongue instead of an Irken one. *When Zim is running away from The Roboparents, before he runs in the trash can, Zim's lenses are gone, however, they are on him before and after that scene. *After the Tallest yell "Hey someone's making donuts!" And the camera goes to Zim, He doesn't have a head shadow on the floor. *During Zim's rant at the beginning of the episode, just after one of the Massive's escort ships rushes by close to the camera, look at the ship in the background that's moving faster than the others toward the right of the screen. It passes through another ship as the camera begins to pan towards the Masssive's interior. Quotes Almighty Tallest Red: I was curious to see when you'd shut up on your own. But it's been THREE hours now, Zim. THREE HOURS! So... what is it? GIR: I made mashed potatoes! Zim: Yes... and muffins. Shloonktapooxis: Wheeeoh, did anybody think that was cool? Please respond! Zim: With this, I can pilot The Massive and bring the Almighty Tallest here to witness my ingenious evil! Dib: Noo! Zim: 'I said evil! 'Shloonktapooxis: How 'bout "The Pirate Monkeys"? It's an awesome name. Lard Nar: Hmmm... No. We need something scary! Something to strike fear into all who hear of the resistance! Spleenk: I got it! I got it! Almighty Tallest Red: Identify yourselves. Lard Nar: We are the Resisty! We have come to say-- Almighty Tallest Purple: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa... Did you say, "the Resisty"? Lard Nar: Yes, yes. The Resisty! Anyhow... we have come... Almighty Tallest Purple: That's a stupid name. (The Resisty's scary setup falls apart) Lard Nar: See, I told you it was stupid! Why do I keep listening to you? Spleenk: I don't know. Almighty Tallest Red: ...Destroy them! Fire some kinda...laser...thingie at 'em... RIGHT NOW! Spleenk: We're being pulled towards a nearby planet! We're gonna crash! It's gonna hurt! And I don't want to! Lard Nar: (screams for two seconds) ''I, uh, I mean, EVACUATE THE SHIP! 'The Resisty' ''(screams) Lard Nar: Activate the SHRINKY SELF-DESTRUCT; No alien thieves will steal the secrets of this ship. Computer(in a jazzy voice):' "Shrinky Selfdestruct: Activated!" 'Lard Nar: ''(vowing revenge) Hear me, Irken Scum!' (declaring) You have not seen the last of the Resistyyyyy!!! (explosion in back of the ship) That's right, THAT's still our name! '''Zim: You're nothing, Earth boy! Go home and shave your giant head of smell with your bad self! Dib: ...Okay, there's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said. Professor Membrane: 'Son, there'd better not be any walking dead up there! 'Dib: It's nothing to worry about, Dad, and I said I was sorry about that! Zim: Ha, watch Dib! Watch as I bring a royal audience to the downfall of the human race! Dib: I don't wanna watch that. Zim: Oh, okay. ...WAIT, that's too bad! Zim: Oh, I know all kinds of things about you. Pretty creepy, huh? Anyhow, I was just... Almighty Tallest Purple: 'Hey... that is creepy! You're creepy, Zim! 'Zim: Laughs. Yes, I sure am. Lard Nar: 'That's The Massive out there. My people designed most of that thing, so I know how powerful it is... We're gonna die! Who's idea was this?! 'Spleenk: 'Uh, mine. Sorry 'bout that. 'The Resisty: (Groans.) Zim: And to make it even sweeter, I'll land The Massive right on top of your landing-pad sized monster of a head, which is disturbingly large. Dib: Nooo! And quit making fun of my head! Aaaaaaaahh! Robodad: Come on son, let's go play in the toilet! Zim's Computer: Something is happening at the front door. Something... horrible! GIR: YAYYYY!! I don't know what you just said! GIR: It's me! I was the turkey all along! Zim: I was wondering what that turkey was doing there. GIR! I'm delaying the brain parasite plan for now. I want you to... GIR: I was the turkey! Me! Zim: Yes... so you were. Zim: That's Tak's ship you're sitting in, isn't it? Dib: Yes it is, Zim! It fell from the - Zim: Isn't it?! Dib: I said it was! Man, you have a problem with listening, Zim. Zim: ISN'T IT?! Robomom: Come on over, everyone, and help us eat this little boy! Zim: NO! were normal, were normal! Dodedodedo! Irken Communication Crew Member : Long-distance communication. back online. Almighty Tallest Red: Now... let's give our friend Zim a call. Almighty Tallest Purple: Yeah. I'm gonna make him hurt. (TV screen turns on, showing Zim running around with the brain-eating parasite attached to his head) Zim: My brain! My brain! Me hurting to think! (Red and Purple stare in horror as nauseating noises come from TV) Almighty Tallest Purple: I'm going to throw up. (runs off screen making retching noises) Almighty Tallest Red: Nooo! Not on the donuts! Prisoner 777: (Sighs) What is it now, Zim? Zim: Detailed schematics for The Massive, and instructions to remote command chair. Prisoner 777: The Tallests' command ship? That would be WRONG! I'd INFURIATE the ARMADA! ...I designed that ship, you know! Here ya go! (Gaz yells angrily) Professor Membrane: What is your brother doing this time? He's not trying to wake the dead again, is he? Always with the dead, that boy... Gaz: He's...talking... Professor Membrane: Oh, is that all? Daughter, some people like to talk! Your brother likes to talk about INSANE things! Maybe he'll become less insane if you listen! Gaz: But his voice...fills me with a terrible rage!!! Professor Membrane: Oh, I know it does, honey, I know it does! (He turns back to work, and Gaz just groans) Dib: Good idea, Gaz! Make some popcorn! We'll be up all night deciphering this stuff! Dib: Hey, look at that garbage can! (once Zim turns away, Dib throws the spybug into Zim's computer, which drills ridiculously loudly) Zim: (not noticing anything at all) Yes, it is rather impressive, that can! References External links *http://www.tv.com/invader-zim/backseat-drivers-from-beyond-the-stars/episode/198989/trivia.html Category:Double Length Episodes Category:Season 2 Category:Dib Filmography Category:Gaz Filmography Category:GIR Filmography Category:Zim Filmography Category:Professor Membrane Filmography Category:Almighty Tallest Filmography Category:Episodes Category:Altered Episodes Category:Dib Filmography Category:GIR Filmography Category:Zim Filmography Category:Season 2 Category:Altered Episodes Category:Zim Filmography Category:Dib Filmography Category:GIR Filmography